Put in about 4 hours last night and really love it so far. I don't really miss anything they've dropped, religion was a major concern initially. The combat is much better and more realistic than any of the past games, with ranged units being able to weaken enemies from a distance before other forces sweep in to mop up. I wasn't really sold on having a finite amount of resources, until I realized how much more valuable it makes your units. You don't really appreciate that swordsman unit until it costs your last resource of iron. I'm running the game at 1680x1050, everything maxed, and it's still smooth as glass for the most part. If I zoom out far enough, the frame rate does take a pretty big hit, but that's to be expected I guess. Specs: Intel C2D 3GHz, 4GB, EVGA 8800 GTS 512MB, Win 7 64.
So I'm around 200 turns into my first game, large map on the default difficulty. I went with Rome and have so far managed to found 6 cities. At this point in the game I don't have many options to expand; the Americans have settled to my south, the city-state of Warsaw lies to the east, west is the coastline, and the north is frozen and has impassable mountains. For the first several thousand years, everyone played nice and didn't step on any toes. Of course you've got your back-room deals, like Ghandi wanting me to form a secret pact against Egypt for instance, but for the most part it was all about protecting your own territory from the roaming hoards of barbarians. Warsaw had the only supply of horses around, not to mention the only iron mine, so naturally I started buying them off pretty early. Egypt was doing this as well, so every hundred years or so I'd have to hand Warsaw some more cash to keep their loyalty firmly in place. At the time I was bringing in more than enough gold to cover that, so it wasn't a huge concern.
At some point, I'm not exactly sure when, Egypt asked that I help them wipe out Persia. By this time we were pretty close position wise, they on the other side of Warsaw, not to mention had pretty profitable trade and research treaties going. I told them I would help, not really even thinking much about it at the time, but they had to give me 10 turns to build up an army. They agreed, but about two turns later I changed all of my production over to city improvement and work production. About 8 turns later Egypt declares war on Persia, then Ramesses comes and asks if I'm ready to fight. What little military I had was committed to keeping my cities safe, so I politely declined. Ramesses wasn't amused, but he kept the war going any way. It lasted a good while, but eventually the Persians wiped out his armies and took his capital. With only one city left, surrounded by Persian armies, Ramesses withdrew all of our agreements before being eliminated a couple turns later. It was almost like he was trying to pull in every last bit of coin to pay off Persia, but it didn't help. By this time I had built up my army quite a bit. Two more iron mines were claimed, as well as numerous wild horses. I had reinforced my cities with crossbow garrisons, and was in the process of moving my main attack force of knights and swordsmen towards the outskirts of my territory. I had originally planned on attacking America first, as New York was very close to both my capital and a major production city. Workers had cut a road through the wilderness and connected the two, with America just a short distance south. It would have been easy to move all of my troops along our roads, marshal just south of Rome, then easily invade and take New York. That was the plan at least, until Persia and Warsaw went to war. I'm not sure who attacked first, but I'm guessing Persia. Warsaw not only had iron and horses, but a gold mine. As their closest ally, they had been giving me a portion of those resources for quite awhile. Naturally I jumped into action and moved all of my swordsmen and knights into their territory to help defend. This proved to be a problem, as Persia had several city-state allies and one of them was directly on my southwest border. Ragusa started sending crossbow troops into my territory, marching directly towards my coastal city. I managed to throw together a quick defense with my own crossbow troops garrisoned in the city, as well as some knights pulled from the war front.
Back in Warsaw; Persia had several spearmen, crossbows, longswords, and cavalry moving in from the east. It was a tough fight, as I lost several of my older units that had some nice promotions. Warsaw's tiny army of crossbows were wiped out, but we managed to push the Persians back into their own territory. I was beginning to move reinforcements down to prepare for an invasion, but Darius offered a peace treaty so I decided to accept. Little did I know that didn't include Warsaw, so their war continued. Darius moved right back into their territory just I pulled all my forces out. I wasn't officially protecting them, so I couldn't really do much else besides declare war again. At this point I had already succeeded in invading Ragusa, so I could safely turn my attention towards Warsaw. It was obvious they couldn't last much longer, so I declared war on them and invaded. Ghandi scolded me for my "warmongering ways", but I wasn't about to let Persia take them over! So now Warsaw is mine, Darius and I are playing nice for the time being, and I just discovered gunpowder. I think it's a perfect time to turn my sites back to the good old USA.
So I'm around 200 turns into my first game, large map on the default difficulty. I went with Rome and have so far managed to found 6 cities. At this point in the game I don't have many options to expand; the Americans have settled to my south, the city-state of Warsaw lies to the east, west is the coastline, and the north is frozen and has impassable mountains. For the first several thousand years, everyone played nice and didn't step on any toes. Of course you've got your back-room deals, like Ghandi wanting me to form a secret pact against Egypt for instance, but for the most part it was all about protecting your own territory from the roaming hoards of barbarians. Warsaw had the only supply of horses around, not to mention the only iron mine, so naturally I started buying them off pretty early. Egypt was doing this as well, so every hundred years or so I'd have to hand Warsaw some more cash to keep their loyalty firmly in place. At the time I was bringing in more than enough gold to cover that, so it wasn't a huge concern.
At some point, I'm not exactly sure when, Egypt asked that I help them wipe out Persia. By this time we were pretty close position wise, they on the other side of Warsaw, not to mention had pretty profitable trade and research treaties going. I told them I would help, not really even thinking much about it at the time, but they had to give me 10 turns to build up an army. They agreed, but about two turns later I changed all of my production over to city improvement and work production. About 8 turns later Egypt declares war on Persia, then Ramesses comes and asks if I'm ready to fight. What little military I had was committed to keeping my cities safe, so I politely declined. Ramesses wasn't amused, but he kept the war going any way. It lasted a good while, but eventually the Persians wiped out his armies and took his capital. With only one city left, surrounded by Persian armies, Ramesses withdrew all of our agreements before being eliminated a couple turns later. It was almost like he was trying to pull in every last bit of coin to pay off Persia, but it didn't help. By this time I had built up my army quite a bit. Two more iron mines were claimed, as well as numerous wild horses. I had reinforced my cities with crossbow garrisons, and was in the process of moving my main attack force of knights and swordsmen towards the outskirts of my territory. I had originally planned on attacking America first, as New York was very close to both my capital and a major production city. Workers had cut a road through the wilderness and connected the two, with America just a short distance south. It would have been easy to move all of my troops along our roads, marshal just south of Rome, then easily invade and take New York. That was the plan at least, until Persia and Warsaw went to war. I'm not sure who attacked first, but I'm guessing Persia. Warsaw not only had iron and horses, but a gold mine. As their closest ally, they had been giving me a portion of those resources for quite awhile. Naturally I jumped into action and moved all of my swordsmen and knights into their territory to help defend. This proved to be a problem, as Persia had several city-state allies and one of them was directly on my southwest border. Ragusa started sending crossbow troops into my territory, marching directly towards my coastal city. I managed to throw together a quick defense with my own crossbow troops garrisoned in the city, as well as some knights pulled from the war front.
Back in Warsaw; Persia had several spearmen, crossbows, longswords, and cavalry moving in from the east. It was a tough fight, as I lost several of my older units that had some nice promotions. Warsaw's tiny army of crossbows were wiped out, but we managed to push the Persians back into their own territory. I was beginning to move reinforcements down to prepare for an invasion, but Darius offered a peace treaty so I decided to accept. Little did I know that didn't include Warsaw, so their war continued. Darius moved right back into their territory just I pulled all my forces out. I wasn't officially protecting them, so I couldn't really do much else besides declare war again. At this point I had already succeeded in invading Ragusa, so I could safely turn my attention towards Warsaw. It was obvious they couldn't last much longer, so I declared war on them and invaded. Ghandi scolded me for my "warmongering ways", but I wasn't about to let Persia take them over! So now Warsaw is mine, Darius and I are playing nice for the time being, and I just discovered gunpowder. I think it's a perfect time to turn my sites back to the good old USA.
